Cloud Elasticity

Definition - What does Cloud Elasticity mean?

Cloud elasticity refers to the ability of a cloud service to provide on-demand offerings, nimbly switching resources when demand goes up or down. It is often an immediate reaction to clients dropping or adding services in real time.

Cloud elasticity is also known as rapid elasticity.

Techopedia explains Cloud Elasticity

Cloud elasticity is linked to various strategies such as resource pooling, multitenant storage and other ways that cloud providers use to provision their services. The idea is that the service should be able to quickly scale up or scale down according to an individual customer’s needs. Public cloud systems largely do this by having many clients on board at any given time and maintaining systems that can easily be re-provisioned to fit changing orders.

IT experts make a distinction between cloud elasticity and cloud scalability. Having scalability or economy of scale means that the system can be built out feasibly from a smaller core. Elasticity on the other hand envisions a dynamic response to demand and supply volatility.